


So Much In Common!

by DixieDale



Series: The Life and Times of One Peter Newkirk [36]
Category: Clan O'Donnell - Fandom, Hogan's Heroes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-30
Updated: 2018-05-30
Packaged: 2019-05-16 03:19:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14803395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DixieDale/pseuds/DixieDale
Summary: She was getting used to having Andrew here, relishing it more and more.  Getting used to the clatter as he fell over, down, or into things.  Getting used to that smile of total joy that seemed to come at even the simplest of things.   Getting used to seeing Peter so happy, at the same time so utterly confused at some of the things Andrew could say, could get him involved in.  Well, that was understandable.  Bless him, Andrew still had the capability of startling HER, catching her so totally off guard as to leave her close to speechless.  This latest venture into the differences between reality and fantasy was just one example, and while she'd expected some surprises, this time he really over-delivered.  Enough she realized just how much they had in common.  Enough she decided it was time for him to personally view a little bit of Haven's own personal history.  Haven's FAMILY history - after all, Andrew was part of the family now, and the family resemblance was becoming more and more apparent!





	So Much In Common!

He'd been at Haven for a few weeks now, totally settled in, still greeting each new day with the same joy they'd seen during his initial visit. They'd hear the clatter as he came down the stairs, each of them holding their breath hoping they wouldn't also hear a thump or thud or crash; Andrew was more than a bit clumsy and those stairs had contributed to a number of bruises. You could say they were his downfall, if you were into punning, though of course they were not the only contributor to the black and blue assortment he bore with calm acceptance; well, after all, he had plenty of experience - Andrew was an equal opportunity klutz of longstanding. He could even name the source of each bruise, even with a bit of pride, 'Duggan, falling down the steps, gate on the sluice, tripping over the rug in my bedroom, falling over a bucket up at the milking barn, Duggan . . .' The big ram adored Andrew, had from the first meeting, much as Angie had, but unlike Angie, who was ever so careful with him, Duggan seemed to take a perverse pleasure in sending him flying, arse over teakettle. He'd even developed a special miaa miaa ma! that let them know yes, he'd done it again, heavy with wicked glee, and they would sigh and bring out the liniment, knowing Andrew would need it when he came through the kitchen door.

They'd hear, "boy, isn't it a beautiful day!" as he bounced through the doorway into the kitchen, and see Peter squint over at him over his coffee cup, turn to peer out the wide kitchen window and turn back to reply in a repressive tone, "Andrew, it's raining," or "Andrew, it's still dark outside, 'ow can you tell," or "Andrew, sit down and 'ave your coffee and shut up!", depending on how the tall Englishman was coping with the new day, which usually seemed to start much earlier than he thought a day should.

But Andrew would just laugh, and plop down at the kitchen table in the chair adjacent to Peter, reaching for the steaming cup one of the others would have placed in front of him, those brown eyes shining, a grin on his face, and Peter would look again, but this time at those eyes, that face, not out the window, and give a snort, and usually say, "oh, alright, yes, it's a beautiful day," in a highly exasperated voice. And, just seeing Andrew sitting there, happy and content, it WAS a beautiful day. And he'd rather sheepishly glance around to see the three women trying to hold back their grins, and he'd give another little snort or a laugh, and shake his head at being caught out. Yes, having Andrew here was making a world of difference, for all of them, not just Peter.

{"I think Reverend Miles was right. Having Andrew here is giving us back some of the joy we'd lost,"} Caeide thought with pleasure. 

Still, sometimes he'd leave them shaking their heads for other reasons. Peter had told them about how a conversation with Andrew could lead off into strange and mysterious directions, and you'd find yourself in unknown territory without having a clue how you got there. They'd heard that, all of them, but somehow the reality of Andrew was still a shock. He was just such an amazing contradiction of shy innocence and sly knowing, solid comforting presence and wild enthusiasm, sensible and sound reasoning contrasting with ideas only the most lenient could even have called 'hair-brained', that he'd leave them standing slack-jawed sometimes.

Caeide had found herself yearning for a stiff jolt of bourbon after more than one encounter, most particularly the one where he'd come to her with a plan to seduce Peter. Well, if that was the word, and she wasn't all that sure it was the right one. After all, he'd told her earnestly that he'd already done THAT, back in the camp, and he related a story that made her angry (at Hogan, not at Andrew), and sad (at the situation they'd found themselves in), and with grateful tears in her eyes at the sweet resolve and determined love of the man sitting next to her, along with amused amazement at his resourcefulness. She'd also been left with a quiet pride in Peter, that sardonic, seen-everything, done-everything cynical man, at the sensible, genuine and actually quite romantic advice he'd given the younger man, advice so simple and sweet and sincere that Andrew said the other team members had wondered where it had come from, since it couldn't have come from the Peter Newkirk THEY knew! She hadn't needed the bourbon then; the coffee had been fine for that revelation. 

The need for the stronger drink came when he revealed his PLAN, later to become known as 'Andrew's Dance', based on his research in the Library (an amazingly diverse font of knowledge collected by Haven's people over the long, long years of its existence), an intensely vigorous scenario, encompassing more variety in intimate interaction than she'd thought possibly reasonable in one episode, especially as, well, as an introduction to their physical relationship. She'd managed to convince him to at least do a bit of a build-up, since he'd confirmed he and Peter hadn't gotten very far down that path; really, had barely placed a toe on that first stone.

She chucked in remembering, {"Peter had been trying to build up his courage to draw Andrew into perhaps a round of gentle kissing, backtracking just a tiny bit to start the process again after so long, and ANDREW was planning this grande ensemble of the erotic arts!"}

She laughed again, remembering Peter's face as he'd come into her bedroom, wide-eyed, almost panicked, "you agreed to BE THERE???"

And she'd reassured him, with a look almost as innocent as the one Andrew usually wore, "well, he asked, and I said I would if he really needed me to be, but only if you agreed. He frets about forgetting something, you know," and only barely kept from laughing at the look on his face, "what's there to bloody well forget?? It ain't rocket science!"

Well, the way Andrew went about it, it might as well have been. At least, she expected a few verbal explosions along the way from Peter, and those had transpired, just as she'd thought they would. Peter had never really seen the need for talking at such times, and Andrew, well, he had a tendency to chatter then almost as much as he did the rest of the time. She had to giggle at the number of times Andrew would stop whatever was going on to ask Peter a question, or perhaps worse, ask the question while NOT stopping whatever was going on! She'd never heard so many "Bloody 'ell, Andrew!"s in her life!

She'd never have supported Andrew in this, except he'd sat through all her reminders, her basic anatomy lesson (some of which really was a surprise to him, sex education in the American Mid-West obviously not being very far advanced outside the most basic and conservative representations), her insistence that he give Peter enough of an outline that it was clear what was intended and that Peter was giving full consent to the PLAN, and that a Safe Word would be put in place and USED and HEEDED as circumstances dictated. He'd agreed earnestly, had done all that, and yes, she'd been there and could testify to that; still Peter had come down the next morning looking like he'd been shell-shocked. Happy, oh undoubtedly, amazingly replete, but shell-shocked, never the less. Yes, Andrew was full of surprises.

Now, there was another surprise in store. She'd come in from checking the stores in the outbuildings to find him seated in a chair on the back porch, deep worried frown on his face.

"Andrew? Is there something wrong," she asked with concern. She'd not really seen a frown on his face since he'd gotten here. He jumped and looked up at her, startled.

"Oh, hi, Caeide. No, nothing's . . . ". He paused, looked back at the kitchen door, making sure he wasn't being overheard, and looked a bit sheepish, saying in a much lower voice, "well, just, how do you know if some things are wrong to think about, and if they are, how to STOP thinking about them, and is thinking about something that's wrong just as bad as doing that something and . . ."

Caeide took a deep breath; somehow she felt the need for to broach that bottle again. She was beginning to think that was her own personal version of 'Bloody Hell, Andrew!' {"And thinking of that, I need to see how much bourbon we have on hand, maybe think about increasing our standing order!"}

She looked at the sky, {"it truly IS a beautiful day,"} and suggested, "Andrew, that sounds like a very involved subject. What do you say I make us a lunch, and you and me take Angie and Angus and go on a picnic; we can talk to our heart's content, that way, and take our time, just the two of us? Would that work?" And his wide grin and eager nod reassured her.

{"That will give me some time to gird myself for whatever's going through his mind,"} knowing she fully intended to fill a flask to add to that lunch! She sent him upstairs to change into riding clothes, she put together the lunch, a thermos of coffee for each of them, AND that flask, (she was very sure she was going to need it sooner or later!), and dashed upstairs to change as well. She stuck her head in through the office doorway to tell Peter she was taking Andrew on a picnic, and although his eyes questioned her, he didn't say anything other than, "then 'ave a good time, the pair of you," but she could tell she'd have some explaining to do later. For some reason, Peter got just a bit leary of her and Andrew having a cozy little chat anymore. Go figure!

A word to Maude in the stillroom, and she headed to the barn, Andrew already there saddling the horses. She tied the basket up behind her, and they set off. She'd though to take him to the Sun Stone, but somehow decided a cozier atmosphere was called for, and headed up to one of her favorite spots, a tiny grove sheltered from the wind, but where the sun came through warmly, and they could see the ocean in the distance. It took more than an hour to get there, and they were ready to sit with the coffee and talk. Or listen, as the case may be. She took the basket and flask with them, sitting them to the side.

Now, sitting cross-legged on the spare blanket, she smiled at him encouragingly.

"Now, Andrew, these things you are thinking about . . ."

He frowned just a bit in concentration, licked his lips, "well, it's really two different KINDS of things. But it's still the question, is it as bad to THINK a thing as it is to DO that same thing?"

"Such as, Andrew?" "Well," and he blushed deeply, "I was reading a book in the Library," and she refrained from grinning.

{"Andrew and that Library!"}

"It was really kinda, well, this guy he got into all these different kinds of situations, and he and this other guy, I mean, even on a bus! And then, the two of them and these women, in an orchard while a picnic was going on just across the way, and then in a little alcove at a party. And another time, they kinda seduced a maid, and a footman, though I'm not really sure what a footman is, . . ."

"And you are wondering if it's the same to read such things, or imagine such things, as it would be to do them?"

She looked at his anxious face, and at his nod, "well, I don't believe it is. After all, most fiction is about doing things you yourself could never be in a situation to do, or think about doing. I mean, if you read Jules Verne's fiction and enjoy it, that doesn't mean you've taken a balloon around the world, or traveled under the ocean, or even that you would really want to, necessarily. If you think it might be fun to plan, oh, say a bank robbery, and you plan it all out, start to finish, ending with a celebratory dinner for pulling it off, is that going to have the police on your doorstep? Or is it only if you really pull off that bank robbery? And, after reading a mystery and deciding it could have been done better, and you decide to re-do it in your mind - is planning the perfect murder, knowing it's only pretend, different than committing the perfect murder? And I'm not talking right and wrong, so much, as the difference between the, say, solidness of the two."

She paused to take another sip of her coffee. "It's the difference between fantasy and reality. Andrew, most of us, I think, make up stories in our heads sometimes, or get involved in a book or play and let that play out in our heads; that's fantasy; if we actually carry OUT those stories, that's reality, and reality is something you have to take responsibility for. There's a bit of a cross-over, though; if, say, you read or made up a story in your head and you thought it was really something you and Peter might enjoy acting out, well, that's play-acting a fantasy, and as long as the two of you are fine with the whole thing, I think that's just fine too. On the other hand, if the two of you decide to act out a fantasy and pull someone else in who doesn't WANT to be part of the fantasy, or who doesn't understand what is happening or going to happen, that's getting back into reality, and that's where the harm comes in."

He frowned and thought for awhile, "so, that part is back to the 'knowing consent and giving, or NO knowing consent and taking, again, right?" remembering back to what they'd discussed in camp, and she smiled approvingly at him.

"Exactly, Andrew!"

They sat together, talking a bit of this and that, and eventually pulled over the picnic basket. She was pleased that so far she hadn't needed to broach that flask. She didn't even get the urge til they were taking their last bites of the tarte tatin slices she'd slipped into the basket as a special treat and draining the last of the coffee.

"So, it's okay that I made up all kinds of stories in my mind about doing really awful things to Colonel Hogan?"

She looked ruefully down at her now-damp and bespattered pants; {"damn, I really wanted that last swallow of coffee!"} She looked at him with some reproach, not necessarily on his words but certainly on his timing, and he apologetically handed over his cup for her to finish; and the face she saw wasn't the usual innocent one, or brimming with enthusiasm one, even the occasional sly one; this was a totally different one, somehow perhaps the Andrew that lived beneath all those others, or at least along side, deadly serious, much older somehow. She merely raised an eyebrow, looking her question.

He didn't flush, or stutter, or any of the things Andrew would have normally done; he just very calmly related what was behind that Seduction in camp, things she'd known about later from her Warrior, from Peter's nightmares, but never just had flatly stated, never heard described in such a matter-of-fact manner. She would have thought him callous and uncaring, if she paid attention only to the tone of his voice, the lack of emotion on his face; his eyes, though, they told a totally different story.

"And because of all that, you made up stories in your mind," she said, in just a matter of fact voice.

"Yeah," and he told a couple, then finished with one that made her swallow deeply.

"You never acted on any of them," she prompted, and he tooked at her, and his eyes, well, they weren't just older, they were old, old and bitter.

"No, we needed him; I thought he was our only chance, not just of getting the jobs done, but our only chance of maybe getting out of there alive. See, he's the one London cared about; they'd shown us a lotta times, they had more important things to think about than helping us. I figured if I did anything, like I was thinking, I'd get us all killed. I couldn't do that to the guys, Caeide," and his face now held more than a trace of shame.

{"Sweet Mother! I've said for a long time, our Andrew is an anomaly - not at all what you expect, more than he seems to be, not easily classified. I never realized just how much so!"}

She saw the anxiety starting to build as she sat looking at him, wondering just how to respond.

"Andrew, let's take a ride. There's something I want to show you, something I think will answer some of your questions."

And he wondered, but helped her repack the blanket and basket and all, and they mounted Angie and Angus and she led the way up through the hills, and around, and down, and finally they made a sharp turn through a pass, and there, spread out in front of him was . . . 

{"Wow! I thought that was just a family joke! Just a way of expressing themselves when someone really, really annoyed them!"} He sat back in the saddle and let out a deep breath. The grave sites lined the hill to the left, from about half way up all the way to the bottom; the ones on the hill to the right, from three-quarters way down almost to the bottom. There was one section on the hill facing them, with maybe eight or ten spaces marked out in stone. They dismounted, neither saying a word, and she led him through the graves on the left first; he saw that the ones at the top had no markers, the ones further down had only the remnents of where markers had once been. He looked closely at the date on one marker and looked at her with huge eyes, licked his lips and asked, "that date . . . is that really . . ."

"Yes, Andrew. I know, I asked that same question my first trip up here, but, no, that's the right date. See, the next one is about seventy five years later, and they go on that way. I told you, Haven is very, very old."

"Yeah, but . . .?"

"And we're not the oldest enclave, not by many years, and most of them have their own 'far hillsides', of one nature or another."

She led him on, and as they got back to the bottom, and he looked at the ones to the right, "how many, total?"

"I don't rightly know," and he looked her incredulously, not believing, not imagining she hadn't counted them. How could she have resisted??!

She chuckled, "I know how many markers there are, of course," and she told him, and he gulped. "But those top sections? They are the oldest, and those markers have long since fallen to dust. And there may be some on top of others; that used to be done quite often. So I don't know how many."

She brought him to the section with only a few spaces; now he could see there were nine of them. Each had a marker with a name, with the addition of an extra marker, 'Reserved'.

"Peter hasn't seen this, and I think it best you not mention it to him for right now; he's heard about it, but when I offered to bring him here, he decided against it. I imagine the time will come, but not quite yet." 

She walked him to the end, and nodded at the stone outline, the marker; he looked, and broke out in a shocked but delighted laugh. Some part of him was appalled at laughing in this ancient graveyard, but the sight of that marker, a good 2'x3', all carved up, headed by the name 'Robert Hogan', well that caused him to turn, look at the redhead grinning at him, and he couldn't help himself, he reached out and hugged her tightly.

"Caeide! I can't believe you did that!" And they laughed together. He knelt down and read all the words, and chuckled, and even more so when she ruefully admitted, "and the back is full too!"; and that meant he just had to go to the back and read those very rude and truthful statements too. Finally, he collapsed, cross-legged, laughing til tears came, this time not even thinking about whether this was appropriate or not.

"Oh, Caeide, I KNEW I liked you, right from the start!" and his laughter continued til it died out, mostly because he was out of breath. It probably didn't help when she told him, "and, yes, I thought up more than a few responses to his behavior, a few fantasies that would probably thoroughly appall most civilized people. But then, I've never claimed to be, nor even wanted to be 'civilized'. It's just not a Clan attribute, any more than being 'subtle'," she told him calmly, and he took another look at that grave marker, remembered the ravens, and laughed again, {"subtle!"}

"No, probably not. Someday, Caeide, I want to come back when I have a notepad and pencil; some of those, they really need to be written down! And I'd really like to hear some of those fantasies."

She looked at him slyly, "the ones about Hogan or the others?" and his eyes got wide again, and the look on his face wasn't that innocent, bewildered one either, but one much older, much more, well, whatever it was. She grinned at him, he grinned back.

"Yeah, both, and do you want to hear some of the ones I've had, not about Hogan, but, well . . .?" and she nodded, encouragingly, but with a bit of apprehension, Andrew being Andrew, though obviously with many more sides than most would think.

And he related some of them as they rode back to the house, and it was of no real surprise when as he came to the end of one of his more elaborate ones, that she stopped Angus, pulled out the flask and took a deep swig. She offered the flask to Andrew, he grinned a positively wicked grin in return and downed a goodly amount himself. She chucked and shook her head, {"I've said it before, I'll say it again, Peter is in for a time of it, and yes, I think he'll enjoy every minute of it!"} Thinking of a few of those grinning, sly glances he'd cast over at her, and one or two of those fantasies, she rather thought she might as well.

They rode back into the courtyard, dismounted and led their horses into the barn, to be brushed and curried, fed and watered and settled. And if the looks they got when they came in the back door were a bit odd, well, afterwards Caeide replayed that scene in her mind. They'd both been dusty and disheveled, her bespattered with that coffee she'd spat out at Andrew's sharing, his knees grimy what with kneeling at that gravesite, along with the seat of his pants, both of them smelling more than a bit of strong liquor and horse, neither able to keep from chuckling or giggling whenever they looked at each other.

She would have laughed too, if she'd been in the kitchen to see the other three watch them go through the doorway, to the stairs, up to get somewhat cleaner.

"Maudie, do I WANT to know what that was all about?"

She snorted, and Marisol laughed out loud, "Peter, I think we are all better off if we DON'T know, don't you??!" He gave a rueful nod, but still looked up toward the ceiling, a puzzled frown on his face.

Somehow, he had a premonition he was going to find out, at least part of it, sooner or later. The question was, when and how, and just how terrifying (or enjoyable) it would be. {"With that pair, there's just no telling!"} he told himself. And, you know, it was a bit of both! And that was even BEFORE he found himself playing the role of a vegetable merchant in Victorian London, with Andrew being the obliging butler in the household of the rather needy Lady Constance! Though, it was AFTER that most memorial bit of fantasy about a bus trip he and his fellow farmer took to the nearest big city, and the village lass they met along the way. And then, there was that episode of the Little Black Dress! And Caeide had been right, Peter enjoyed every minute of it. Oh my yes! Though, of course, there were more than a few 'Bloody 'ELL!, Andrew!'s scattered throughout. And Caeide had decided it would, as she feared, be necessary to increase the standing order for bourbon.


End file.
